The internet has emerged as a large community of electronically connected users located around the world who readily and regularly exchange significant amounts of information. The internet continues to serve its original purpose of providing access and exchange of information among government agencies, laboratories, and universities for research and education. In addition, the internet has evolved to serve a variety of interests and forums that extend beyond its original goals.
There is growing interest in electronic commerce, whereby individuals and/or entities can transact business via interconnected networks, such as the internet. Electronic commerce offers advantages to both buyers and vendors. With electronic commerce, a buyer may access many more vendors than could be achieved via conventional methods of commerce. Thus, with electronic commerce, buyers can potentially achieve a lower purchase price, as well as a wider selection of goods and/or services. By the same token, electronic commerce affords vendors a larger market place, and access to a larger number of potential buyers.
Much of the electronic commerce presently conducted between buyers and vendors occurs by the exchange of data in the form of graphics and/or text. Typically, a buyer seeking to purchase goods and/or services electronically initiates the transaction by first establishing a data link with the vendor. For example, if the vendor possesses a website on the worldwide web portion of the internet, the buyer initially makes a connection via a computer, to an internet service provider. Once connected, the buyer then enters the universal resource locator (URL) associated with vendor to access that vendor's website. After the buyer has accessed the vendor's website, the buyer enters the information needed to complete the transaction.
Today, the internet is widely utilized in connection with the sale of financial products. Financial institutions, such as banks and insurance companies, provide online financial product information for browsing by the customer. For a majority of financial products, online purchasing is fairly straightforward if the host systems are available to set up an electronic account through which a customer may fund and transact business. However, online purchasing may not be available if the financial institution's host processing systems are undergoing batch processing or are otherwise unavailable.
In short, most financial institutions require that an electronic account be set up, as well as funded, prior to the purchase of a financial product. Thus, if a potential customer accesses the financial institution's website while its host system is unavailable, the financial institution is unable to provide the potential customer with the ability to purchase a financial product. Typically, under such circumstances, the financial institution will display a text message to the potential customer informing them that they will be contacted by a customer service representative within a predetermined period of time. Such an occurrence is unacceptable for many potential customers who live in different time zones or have limited access to the internet. Thus, there remains a need for a system and method capable of opening an electronic account and transacting business over the internet while host processing system(s) are unavailable.